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iFishMN.us 0

Big crappies like the shallow water, a very overlooked area for ice fishing. Reading some of Matt Johnson's post about the shallow water bites has helped me a lot...All the big crappies I have gotten over the last year have been in shallow water, my house is in deep water now and I have been getting nothing over 11", will be moving back to shallow water this weekend.

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FishOn! 0

Yeah i wouldnt have targeted crappies there probably, but a friends perm on green was mighty inviting with the cold air. thought we would only get northerns, but lots of crappies and bass! no northerns!

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FishOn! 0

I was out for a few hours tonight on my slab goldmine and man, im getting worried that its going to winterkill. for weeks it was slab after slab, now its small ones and they are moving SLOW! the lake has a history of kills, but afterall thats why they are huge in the first place.

Thanks Cliff! I've been very closely monitoring Pike Bay the last few weeks I'm not far from you as the crow flies right on the bay. Still sitting at 4-5 inches of ALL refroze slush. No good ice. It's flooding over pretty good with 1-3 inches water with the couple inches snow still on top. Hopefully the cold penetrates that snow and gets things going so I can run the sled right up the bay to McKinley by next weekend.

The ice on the small pond on the west side of the road heading into SJU was able to hold my weight (which is substantial, alas). I didn't have a chisel, and I wasn't about to go any further out. Still, very good sign. I'm sure there'll be guys out by the end of the weekend, if not sooner.

I think the fishing will be outstanding this winter. They were certainly going crazy in early December. I honestly don't care about keeping any fish, though it is nice to have the option of bringing one home. I don't understand why guys drive four or five hours to catch dozens of dinks on Red Lake--especially last year when you could only keep two or three--when Mille Lacs was *insane* last year with both numbers and size. Oh well. It obviously sucks for the businesses, but I won't complain about having the best flats all to myself.
We were up on the northwest side out of Myr Mar. The harbor didn't even freeze up. We did nothing special...trolled slowly using big baits, on shoreline breaks, over remaining weeds, and over rocks. It was just like the old days, only back then we thought we were tough when we fished in early November.